Large products, often those associated with heavy machinery and the like, are often cast from steel. Such products are often produced by suppliers required to meet the demands of numerous clients having varying product needs. For example, a product may include a compressor housing. A supplier may be required to produce a number of different compressor housings having varying dimensions and attributes. Such a demand may require expensive tooling and machining devices equipped for such variances. Indeed, in order to provide various different compressor housings, a supplier may be required to purchase, make, or otherwise maintain a number of different tooling patterns thereby increasing costs.
Additionally, a supplier may be provided with a very short turn-around time for completion of the product. Increasingly narrow lead times often require larger amounts of inventory available for supplier use. Suppliers may incur significant costs to ensure sufficient inventory of varying products are available.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,551,065 to Becker (the '065 patent) discloses a standard casing formed by a vertically split casing 60. The casing 60 includes an inlet stub end and an outlet stub end for attachment to an inlet passage and an outlet passage, respectively. Upon selection of a desired shell thickness, the stub ends may be trimmed back to match the thickness of the shell section and its inner diameter may be enlarged to match an inner diameter of the passage to be attached. However, the method of manufacture of the '065 patent may still suffer from manufacturing inefficiencies.